25 percent unemployment. One-third of the residents have moved out. There are many young men [and women] with no jobs collecting welfare checks and on the streets or playing [around] with friends most of the day. There are women watching television all day. There are numerous unemployed adult children living with an unemployed parent. Many of these city residents have a problem with alcohol and drugs. Older men who once did heavy labor have been laid off; most have been out of work for years. Many young unmarried women, especially teenagers in the public housing complexes are pregnant or have already had illegitimate children. Most of the Young do not expect to work in the future. They seem resigned, angry, or fatalistic about their lives. They feel no one Cares about them.

Are the above problems related to race or economics? Many US whites and blacks would answer that these problems are racial, - even if qualifications were added to the analysis about external circumstances like international competition, changes in technology, the occupational mix, the arrival of new immigrants and other such factors. But the Problems presented in the above inner-city description are those of Liverpool, England. The people are white workers and their families. Shadows of Race and Class Raynond S. Franklin University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis Oxford 1991.

What is the essence of capitalism?
The Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines capitalist as follows: "A person who has capital, esp. extensive capital, invested in business enterprises." The same source defines Capitalism as "An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth."

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language gives this definition of labor as: (1). "productive activity, esp. for the sake of economic gain (2). the body of persons engaged in such activity, esp. those working for wages (3). this body of persons considered as a class (distinguished from management and capital).

When all aforementioned definitions are combined and applied to the labor milieu the following is evident: [Marxists view] capital as exerting a direct power over labor in the production process, through hiring and firing, and control of the working procedures and conditions. This direct form of power rests however, on the social structure of capitalism, which creates a subordinate class position for labor (The Global Political Economy Perspectives Problems and Policies Stephen Gill and David Law John Hopkins University Press Baltimore 1988. In short, since everybody can't be an owner, capitalism by its nature differentiates owners from workers. Herein rest the nucleus of race, class and wealth segmentation. Capitalism as an economic order cannot persist without pervasive inherent forms of dominates and subordinates. Even in countries where blacks are the overwhelming majority and whites are the minority, - blacks are still represented as workers rather than owners. Thus, wherever capitalism is the economic order, one's political affiliation, religious beliefs and to a large extent race has an element of irrelevance. In fact, only in countries where the overwhelming majority of its citizens are white and there is a black or colored minority, - does race assume relevance. Here, the question of race becomes a matter of by what standard or measurement should laws, science and theology justify the necessary subordination of its less fortunate brethren?

What is supremely applicable in a capitalist society is one's status as either an owner or laborer. Look at yourself for example, you are a syndicated columnist, yet, you don't own all of the newspapers, magazines, or radio stations that distribute your editorials. Even if you were white Mr. Williams, capitalist owners who mass produce and distribute your diatribe also possess equal power to silence it. Simply said, until such time as you possess the power or capital to distribute, mass produce or manufacture you own conservative commentary - it matters little the number of conservative generations in your lineage or your religious faith. You too, like those you declaim in Why I am a Proud Conservative are wholly dependent upon the power of capitalist economics!

Mr. Williams, at best, party politics and religion may serve as a vehicle for rewarding individuals like yourself but has far less effect on rewarding social aggregates. Programs such as affirmative action which I'm sure you decry would do far more for aggregates than conservatism. In any case, I conclude with these final thoughts, capitalism is analogous to ownership which is adjunct to whiteness. Whiteness conceptually and juxtaposed with blackness is valued in all capitalist societies. White By Law Ian F. Haney Lopez New York University Press New York and London 1996. I would therefore reason that even if the number of blacks incarcerated nation wide where today just a trickle, and the same meager numbers represented on welfare, - blacks as an aggregate would still be viewed as those people at the bottom rung of American society. Why I am a Good Conservative is neither new nor innovative, but in fact sounds like that of a well trained Negro in the values of "whiteness." Obscure focusing on black crime, welfare and religiosity is a smoke screen to avoid and hide the true essence of the adverse effects of capitalism and the victims it consumes. Although you would have one believe that party politics and religious belief dictates one's economic fate, diversely I have attempted to argue that capitalist economics rest at the core and dictates who shall have what, - it is the capitalist who controls the rewards. Party politics and religion lye at the periphery and may, at the very least serve individual interest.